something
of an _enfante terrible_ to the end of her long life, she drew the
attention of one of her guests, by no means too cautiously, to the
features of another guest, a bishop of great renown. "Isn't his face,"
she asked, in a deathless sentence, "like the inside of an elephant's
foot?" I have not personally the honour of this divine's acquaintance,
but all my friends who have met or seen him assure me that the
similitude is exact. Another lady, happily still living, said of the
face of an acquaintance, that it was "not so much a face, as a part of
her person which she happened to leave uncovered, by which her friends
were able to recognize her." A third, famous for her swift analyses,
said that a certain would-be beauty might have a title to good looks but
for "a rush of teeth to the head." I do not quote these admirable
remarks merely as a proof of woman's natural kindliness, but to show how
even among the elect--for all three speakers are of more than common
culture--the face joke holds sway.

The Puttenhams

I

From _The Mustershire Herald and Oldcaster Advertiser_

"The new volume of _The Mustershire Archaeological Society's Records_ is,
as usual, full of varied fare.... But for good Oldcastrians the most
interesting article is a minute account of the Puttenham family, so well
known in the town for many generations, from its earliest traceable date
in the seventeenth century. It is remarkable for how long the Puttenhams
were content to be merely small traders and so forth, until quite
recently the latent genius of the blood declared itself simultaneously
in the constructive ability of our own millionaire ex-townsman, Sir
Jonathan Puttenham (who married a daughter of Lord Hammerton), and in
the world-famous skill of the great chemist, Sir Victor Puttenham, the
discoverer of the Y-rays, who still has his country home on our borders.
The simile of the oak and the acorn at once springs to mind."

II

Miss Enid Daubeney, who is staying at Sir Jonathan Puttenham's, to her
Sister

MY DEAR FLUFFETY,--There are wigs on the green here, I can tell you.
Aunt Virginia is furious about a genealogy of the Puttenham family which
has appeared in the county's archaeological records. It goes back ever so
far, and derives our revered if somewhat stodgy and not-too-generous
uncle-by-marriage from one of the poorest bunches of ancestors a knight
of industry ever had. Aunt Virginia won't see that, from such loins,